Obama Told Us What He Really Believes When He Said, "You Didn't Build That"

RUSH: This is Zack in Caldwell, Idaho. Great to have you on the program. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hello. Yes. I'd just like your opinion on why is it that those who work hard and are successful are perceived as ignorant unless they go out and get this education or this higher education that they're pushing so hard?

RUSH: Well, I'm not sure I agree with the premise. Why are successful people who didn't go to college looked down on?

CALLER: Yeah, pretty much. I'm a pretty successful guy. I've built my own world with my own two hands here, and yet every time I talk to somebody who's of the leftist persuasion, they perceive me as ignorant.

RUSH: Yeah, well, you're a threat. You've gotten somewhere that violates the proscriptions they've set up and they believe in themselves, and, as such, you represent a threat to them. You're not supposed to be possible. And so you're a quirk of fate or what have you. But that's the nature of elitism, sir. They're just superiorists. And one of the things that makes 'em superior is where they go to the school.

CALLER: So it's superior to run out and get a bunch of debt that you're not even gonna be able to afford --

RUSH: Yeah. I mean, can you imagine how they look at the Robertson family of Duck Dynasty?

CALLER: Almost like backwoods rednecks, kind of like me. I'm a backwoods redneck.

RUSH: Here you have multimillionaires in a duck call business, I guarantee you they're embarrassed by 'em. They don't think they're anything special. They don't credit hard work. They just think they're a bunch of dumb hayseed customers, a bunch of dumb hayseed hicks that live where they have their business, they like guns and so forth. That's just the nature of elitism. They're just better than you, sir. You didn't go to college, you probably couldn't get in. It really says you're dumb and stupid. You're not educated like they are. Who cares if you're a success? You just aren't as smart as they are, no matter what you do.

CALLER: I guess I'll just keep on going being ignorant, then.

RUSH: Well, don't worry about it. Who cares what they think? Like you said, these are people that -- what have they done? You're talking about the people responsible for running up the debt. It's actually a very good question and illustration of the whole societal caste system, the old high school clique, the old saw that we never really get outta high school. These are the people that define proper, smart, educated, dignified. And you don't fit 'cause you didn't go to college, and not only that, you didn't go to the right one. I mean, these people look down on people that didn't go to the Ivy League. You could have a college degree from University of Iowa and they're gonna sniff at you.

I wouldn't let it bother me at all, aside from just being able to satisfy your curiosity about it. Whatever you do -- and I don't think you do. I'm not saying this -- but whatever you do, don't succumb to this and allow yourself to think of yourself as second class because these people look at you that way. If I were you I'd just look at 'em and laugh. 'Cause what they really are is befuddled, jealous, envious, and confused, because you're not supposed to be able to happen. I'm not, either. I'm not supposed to exist the way I do. I didn't go to college. Well, I didn't finish. Now, some of you might be saying, "What about Gates? What about Jobs?" Well, they dropped out, too, but they rejoined the group and became members again, culturally and politically. Zack, I appreciate the call.

This is Chris in Lake Linden, Michigan. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I'm calling because I'm sharing the frustration of my 19-year-old niece putting herself through college and how Obama can't believe that if you work hard you can get ahead. When she has breaks from college, she would like to work full time for like a week or two weeks off and she can't because the jobs she works at can't hire her for more than 29 hours. And for two weeks it's hard to go out and get a different job to supplement those 29 hours. So she can't make extra money during her breaks.

RUSH: Right. Now, what is it you're upset with Obama about, though, or --

CALLER: I'm just saying he can't believe that, you know, if you work hard. She would love to work hard. She would love to make more money to help pay for her college.

RUSH: Look, sorry to repeat myself. I really don't think that he believes that. I think it's just something that a leftist will say to relate to a majority of people when he's really fooling them. He can't tell the people what he really thinks about this or he wouldn't get elected. He's got to make them think that he holds certain traditions as close and dear as they do. One of the reasons he wants to transform the country is precisely because his people, his leftists, they don't think hard work gets you anywhere. They think the game's rigged. They think the rich control who succeeds and who doesn't, and they think hard work is a trick to exploit people so that the rich can benefit from all their labor.

We're into six years here of an economy slowly but surely being unwound. Six years of an economy that is itself being transformed. And he says this so often, and in exactly the same words, that I'm convinced he's simply saying this 'cause he wants people to think that he believes it's true. It's something that sounds good if you're trying to convince people that you're actually engaging in an effort to rebuild the economy. I mean, hard work and perseverance paying off, why, that is not distinctly American. That is something that is a human truth. Hard work, perseverance, stick-to-it-iveness, all those things pay off. That's boilerplate 101, and that's exactly how he's using it.

But as you just illustrated, that's not the case. As the private sector continues to shrink --this is the mathematics of it. The old saw about hard work and perseverance, preparation, education, all of the effort that you put in, the devotion that you have, there has to be a pie for you to get your piece of. And the pie has to be growing, it has to be expanding to account for population increase, people retiring and leaving the pie, younger people getting out of college or entering the workforce and wanting their piece of the pie. The thing about America is that pie has always gotten bigger. It has always expanded. There has always been an opportunity for anybody to get as big a piece of that pie as they reasonably expect or want.

That's what's changing. The pie is shrinking, and as a result of the pie shrinking there's less to be had because the government's usurping more and more of it. And in the midst of all that the president says (imitating Obama), "Yep, well, hard work, you work hard, pay off, that's always been the deal, that's been the promise of America." It's not a promise of America. It's a capitalistic truth. But more than that it's a human truth. All this guy's doing is making it harder and harder and harder for everybody in the middle class to be upwardly mobile. That's what was always distinctive about America, is the pie grew even for the middle class. That's what's stopped happening because of him.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: As usual, in the e-mail I have doubting Thomases and people who think they're challenging me, who think it's ridiculous to say that Obama does not believe that hard work is how you do it. A bunch of e-mails: "Rush, do you realize how ridiculous you sound? Everybody believes that. Of course he believes that." I'm telling you, you know what Obama believes? "You didn't build that." That is what Obama believes.

Now, what does that mean? Remember, it was popularized recently by the fake Indian from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, who was getting standing ovations, by the way, from Democrat voters when she made the point that the successful, "You didn't build that." Now, what does "you didn't build that" mean? It means that you, the successful, really aren't responsible for your success. That's what he really believes, folks. Now, in the example that she used and that he used they take a factory, 'cause to them America is factories.

You have to understand, to socialists and communists, everything is factories and workers. In their minds, when they look out over America they see factories, and inside the factories are workers. And they see a head honcho in the factory, the owner or the CEO, and they resent the hell out of the guy, because they don't see him as doing any work at all. But he's making 15,000 times what the workers are making. So the workers, who are really working hard, are really making the guy rich. He's exploiting them. He's robbing from them. He's stealing from them.

He didn't build that factory. The workers and the government who built the road to get to the factory and the stoplights to avoid accidents on the way to the factory, and the sewage lines to keep the factory sanitary. The guy that owns the factory and owns the business, he didn't do anything. He didn't build that. Everybody else did, except they're getting screwed because they're not being treated as owners. They are exploited, and I'm telling you, when you hear Obama say (imitating Obama), "Americans work hard and become a success," he doesn't believe that. Hard work is not how you get to the top. You get to the top by cheating people, stealing from people, inheriting something. Some of that's a generalization, but the point is you cannot have a guy who says two things like Obama does.

"You didn't build that." We've played that sound bite. Remember, he caught hell for that, and they spent how much time trying to spin that? (imitating Obama) "You didn't build that. You didn't make that happen. All the rest of us did, the government did, you didn't." That's what he really believes. So on the one hand, "You didn't build that, you didn't make that possible, we did." And then in the next breath he says, "Work hard, put everything you've got into it, that's how you succeed in America." You succeed in America with guys like him in office and you become a target. You become a suspect. How did you do it, becomes the question. And hard work never ends up being an answer, does it? You got it through some kind of subterfuge. You succeeded by some kind of cheating or some kind of unfairness or some kind of discrimination. And that's what the left thinks.

When you've got a candidate for the Senate standing up pointing to the factory and telling the CEO and the owner and the executives, "You didn't build that," and gets a standing ovation, what do you think those voters think? Do you know what percentage of the pie is growing? I talked about the pie. There is a section of the pie that's growing, the welfare state. The dependent class is growing by leaps and bounds. There's an article today via the Heritage Foundation. "Guess What Group is Getting Food Stamps at an Alarming Rate," is the headline.

Food stamp rolls, as you know, are just growing by leaps and bounds. We're almost close to 50 million Americans on food stamps; 91 million Americans not working. The percentages are frightening here. But what many people may not realize is that participation among able-bodied adults without dependents -- that is actually now a government category. Able-bodied adults without dependents. For those of you in Rio Linda, what that means is healthy adults upon whom nobody is depending. They have no kids, and they're not married. They're simply alone, and they're able-bodied.

They're able to get up every day. They're able to drive. They're able to walk. They're not sick. They're not injured. They are not disabled. Able-bodied adults without dependents is the fastest growing group enrolling in food stamps. The number of people in that category has been skyrocketing compared to the total number of recipients or participants.

"In just four years --" Obama is beginning his sixth year now "-- the number of able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) on the food stamp rolls skyrocketed by over two million," in just the past two years. Now, measure that against the number of jobs lost and the number of people that are no longer in the labor force. Let's remember, too, that Obama is the one who did away with the work requirement for welfare and food benefits. There was a great reform to welfare that Clinton signed in the nineties. It was called welfare reform and you had to show that you were trying to find work in order to get benefits. Obama came along and wiped that out. You don't have to even look for work to get benefits. You don't have to look for work to get welfare.

It's what Obama said. He was in Roanoke, Virginia, July 2012. "There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me because they want to give something back. If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own, you didn't get there on your own, you didn't build that. I'm always struck about you people who think, 'Well, it must be because I was just so smart.' Well, there are a lot of smart people out there. 'It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.' Let me tell you something. There are a whole lot of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

That's what the president believes. He doesn't believe in the prescription of hard work equals success. In that statement, he just puts it down. He just delegitimizes it. Cookie, find that from our archives. That was July 2012, Roanoke, Virginia. Give me the whole thing. "I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there." That's not what makes the difference.

So, you little pajama-clad, nothing-better-to-do libs sending me hate mail, keep it up. It's good amusement. But you don't know what you're talking about. This guy does not believe what he's saying today about hard work paying off. The whole premise of liberalism is that that is a myth. If you look at the Democrat Party's enemies list, it's every successful corporation and individual you can think of (other than in Hollywood or academia).

Success is impugned -- and, worse than that, it's targeted. After you've done all this hard work the president says he believes in, and after you've become this big success the president says he believes in, then what happens? Then you are accused of not paying your "fair share." Then you're accused of not caring about your fellow man. Then you're accused of being greedy and selfish. So which is it?

I'm telling you, at every jobs summit, or at this summit today on college tuition, big whoop! He just utters the syllables about working hard paying off in America. Don't believe they think that. These are the people that target success stories. These are the people that try to delegitimize genuine success stories and try to convince as many people as they can that every success story wouldn't have happened if there hadn't been a government program somewhere in the mix that made it all possible.

Don't doubt me.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Before we get back to the phones, one other thing Obama said in Roanoke in July of 2012, the same speech where "you didn't build that" and your hard work isn't what made you a success 'cause there's a lot of hard workers, and your smarts didn't make you a success 'cause there's a lot of smart people. No, it was other people, government programs, that made the difference.

He said, "The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all these companies could make money off of it." So he even tries to delegitimize whatever's going on in the Internet. They're just a bunch of profiteers, and they didn't even build it. (translated) "We did, the government built it! Government research built it! Algore built the Internet, and you people are profiting, you couldn't do that." We got it now, we got the whole thing?

Here it is. This is Obama, listen to it yourself, on July 12th in Roanoke, Virginia.

OBAMA: Look, i-i-if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own.

FOLLOWERS: That's right!

OBAMA: You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, "Well, it must be because I was just so smart!"

FOLLOWERS: (laughing)

OBAMA: There are a lot of smart people out there. "It must be because I worked harder than everybody else." Let me tell you something. There are a whole bunch of hardworkin' people out there!

FOLLOWERS: (cheers and applause)

OBAMA: If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help!

FOLLOWERS: Yeaaaaaah!

OBAMA: There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.

FOLLOWERS: Yeaaaaaah!

OBAMA: Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges! If you've got a business, you -- you didn't build that!

FOLLOWERS: Yeaaaaaah!

OBAMA: Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

RUSH: He says that with great anger and resentment, by the way, so don't tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about when I tell you that Obama keeps talking about this time-honored tradition of hard work equaling success and that we've gotta bring that back to America. He doesn't believe it. He's simply saying it for public consumption because he knows that people expect that they've elected a president who believes that thing. He'd be in deep doo-doo if not.

This was in the campaign. He was in trouble. Benghazi's going on, all kinds of stuff, Romney's surging. The Republican Party convention's coming up. It was nip and tuck. They weren't confident at all that they were gonna win. He had to come out and speak. He was shoring up his base in that Roanoke speech. That's where he was telling people what he really believed. You can tell me all you want that I don't know what I'm talking about, but when it comes to liberals and leftists, I am never wrong.